What did aptitude fail to do when it installed telnetd? - Setup

This is a discussion on What did aptitude fail to do when it installed telnetd? - Setup ; Hi everybody,
I googled and can't figure this out...I just installed Debian 3.1r5
(used to run 2.2). I installed telnetd (please, no posts about how
unsecure it is) using aptitude. telnet to localhost gives me a
connection refused error. I ...

What did aptitude fail to do when it installed telnetd?

Hi everybody,

I googled and can't figure this out...I just installed Debian 3.1r5
(used to run 2.2). I installed telnetd (please, no posts about how
unsecure it is) using aptitude. telnet to localhost gives me a
connection refused error. I looked in /var/log/syslog and found an
inetd entry complaining about no such user for 'telnetd.telnetd'.

I looked at the inetd.conf fle and it's the same as the one in my old
Debian install. I replaced the owner field of 'telnetd.telnetd' with
root and telnetd works fine (it allows local and remote logins).

Sure, I can keep the file change, but I'd like to learn what went
wrong with the install.

One more thing that may/may not be relevant. In syslog, inetd also
has an entry about not finding initd.d (there is none in /etc--I'm
using inetd.conf). For now I'm assuming this message is just a
nuisance "informative" one.

Thanks all for the insight!

Jim

Re: What did aptitude fail to do when it installed telnetd?

In comp.os.linux.networking Jim wrote:
> I looked in /var/log/syslog and found an inetd entry complaining about no
such user for 'telnetd.telnetd'.

Does the user exist in /etc/passwd?

telnetd:x:104:104::/nonexistent:/bin/false
>
> I looked at the inetd.conf fle and it's the same as the one in my old
> Debian install. I replaced the owner field of 'telnetd.telnetd' with
> root and telnetd works fine (it allows local and remote logins).

It didn't make a difference. I think the problem is the telnetd
server process was never launched because inetd doesn't recognize
telnetd as a valid user. Recall in my first post about the syslog
message. The exact message is: gumby inetd[614]: telnet/tcp: No
such user 'telnetd.telnetd', service ignored. I don't see a telnetd
process running.

My passwd entry is: telnetd:x:103:103::/nonexistent:/bin/false

My group entry is: telnetd:x:103:

Like I said, I can get it running if I change inetd.conf to have root
as the user, but I shouldn't have to (it wasn't that way on my older
Debian install).

I appreciate all your help. I tried most of your suggestions last
week--I still haven't tried the "-a none" option though. I've been
busy getting the rest of my system up (lirc, irmp3). Since it works
OK with root as the owner, I'm gonna leave it for now. I don't have
that linux box routed to the internet, so it's not really a big deal.
I just wanted to fix it for the sake of learning. I'll try your last
suggestion, and if it doesn't work, I'll periodically do a newsgroup
search to see if anyone else has the problem/solution.